My Reverse Immersion Chiller

[noodle23]

Hey Guys just finished my reverse immersion chiller. Im somewhat happy with the way the build went...minus the fact that home depot here doesn't know how to label their copper tubing right.

its designed for gravity movement but i think a pump is defiantly in the future.

40feet of tubing give or take based on mods. and the cooler will hold about 10gallons of ice water.
apologize for quality or blurriness cell camera

*second try for pics for those who can't see the originals
Ok so here are the pics again. Hopefully they show up this time.
I put them on flickr so...maybe




*third times a charm
Also if you still cant see the pics then here are the links... sorry i can't figure out why they are showing up in some places and not others
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420165807/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420165685/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420772346/in/photostream/

 

[bad67z]

Very nice! If you add a pump how would us use it in you system?

 

[noodle23]

I would use a pump to recirculate and pump out the wort. my only concern with it is the how fast it cools the hot wort.

 

[alan_marks]

Please repost the pics, they don't show up for me.
Alan

 

[bad67z]

Please repost the pics, they don't show up for me.
Alan

Pic's show up just fine for me, you may have some sort of security setting/software issue.

 

[Flomaster]

question: once you hot wort heats up the water in the cooler chilling is going to slow to a crawl?

-=jason=-

 

[bad67z]

I would use a pump to recirculate and pump out the wort. my only concern with it is the how fast it cools the hot wort.

Ok, you may want to take a look at "whirpool chiller"(minus the immersion chiller portion). You could recirculate the cooled wort back into your brew kettle and bring all the wort down to temp. This will help reduce the potential for DMS. You have me thinking, I just might have to try something like this out.

 

[bad67z]

question: once you hot wort heats up the water in the cooler chilling is going to slow to a crawl?

-=jason=-

I'm thinking about cooling in two stage very similar to what I do now with my immersion chiller, tap water primary to get to around 100F, then switch over to pond pump and ice water closed secondary to get me to pitching temp.

With this cooler setup I would use the march pump to recirculate the wort threw the chiller and back to the kettle ala whirlpool method. Once the wort gets to 100F if would drain the cooler, then add ice, salt and some water.

It just might be time for the 10yr old son and I to do a little experimenting.

Thanks for getting my mind working at @ 2:30 in the morning folks.

 

[noodle23]

question: once you hot wort heats up the water in the cooler chilling is going to slow to a crawl?

-=jason=-

good thinking i might add a valve at the bottom to release water and then i can add new cold water.
@bad67z the whirpool chiller an intresting idea. I think im going to stick this for now. test it out i keep updating this on how well it works.

 

[cdubbaya]

I also see no pics... I can see images from other sources on different threads. Not sure what's going on with this one?

But if your description indicates what I think it does, I was going to do this exact thing this weekend! If I'm picturing it correctly, it's a long copper tube inside of the cooler, which is surrounded by ice and water? I was thinking about cutting holes in the side of the cooler for the in/out. Then you just pump the wort through the copper tube and into your fermenter?

Am I visualizing it correctly? I'm curious to see how it works!

 

[samc]

I also see no pics... I can see images from other sources on different threads. Not sure what's going on with this one?

Log out and pictures show up, log back in and they are gone!

Then they reappeared.

 

[EarthBound]

Ain't seein' nothin' either and ain't nothin' wrong with my computer.

 

[ISUBrew79]

Are there any advantages to this setup compared to a conventional counterflow chiller?

 

[oceanselv]

Where are the pictures?

 

[noodle23]

Ill repost the pics tonight when I get home. Sorry guys

 

[noodle23]

Ok so here are the pics again. Hopefully they show up this time.
I put them on flickr so...maybe

 

[klyph]

I used a similar design with my HLT HEX coil as a chiller. I found that the water just didn't have enough thermal capacity. Think about it this way, you've got boiling wort and water thats a little cooler than ambient temperature, if you just mixed the two together and stirred, you'd be no where near pitching temp. You'll need a way to add cold water or ice to the system to get it down to pitching temps.

Did you build this because your ground water isn't cold enough?

 

[Killinger]

Before I got my plate chiller, I tried to convert my existing immersion chiller to this design. I pumped hot wort through the chiller and dropped it into a bucket of ice water. I found that it didn't work nearly as well as I hoped. I had to stir the ice water constantly or the chilling would be nil.

Hope you have better luck than I did.

 

[cdubbaya]

I was going to try this with a larger rectangular cooler, and spread out the copper tubing a bit.

I'm no thermo dynamics pro, but I would think a tighter coil would mean less space for the freezing water to surround the tubing resulting in a more difficult chill process. Does that sound right?

 

[noodle23]

So i used my new chiller for the first time today. Worked really good. I had to get a pump and used it recirculate the wort for only 25mins. I went from 140 to 70f. I did boil my make up water and let it cool. Then added to the final wort. The ice didn't melt so fast that the water rose in temp as well. Over all pretty efficent.

I'm no thermo dynamics pro, but I would think a tighter coil would mean less space for the freezing water to surround the tubing resulting in a more difficult chill process. Does that sound right?

I look at it this way my friend, 40ft of tubing is 40ft of tubing. So rectangle vs. circle i don't think is going to make a difference. especially if you use a pump the rate will be the same either way. Trust me i thought about the same thing as well.

Plus if you buy rolled copper then you will have a hell of a time trying to bend it into shape. Just my thoughts. But i like the brainstorming as well.

 

[noodle23]

Also if you still cant see the pics then here are the links... sorry i can't figure out why they are showing up in some places and not others
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420165807/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420165685/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173440@N02/5420772346/in/photostream/